As the blurred torso of a young man hovered in the darkness, a veiled figure approached with floating steps.

"So soon?" a chiming voice sounded through the nothingness, as the figure lay a delicate hand on his forehead. "I could have sworn this one was supposed to be blonde."

Softly, the figure brushed a lock of dark hair to the side. "Black again, why can't it be red or golden for once? The others will make a mockery of me for the hundredth time."

As the boy opened his eyes, someone else's—big and sapphire blue—gazed into his.

"Pret…ty," he mumbled, before she hushed him with a finger.

Vision blurry, he stared past her, out into the void as memories, flashes of light, and the sounds of a collision echoed in the beyond.

Where? A thought bubbled up, but without saying anything, the robed girl before him shook her head.

"Poor thing, as confused as they come, yours must have been a quick one." She put her palm on his naked chest. "A fresh start, how does that sound?" she asked.

But before he could think of an answer, a searing light sprung from where she had touched. Burning, searing within, the light spread rapidly until it beamed out from his pores, and for a moment, it lit up the forever dark with a radiant glow. Darkness like tar seeped in to fill the fracture left behind.

"This one better do the trick... I can't stand being teased again!" her voice chimed.

Once she had left and only the dark remained, a single thought echoed behind before fading: At least I left him something nice.

----------------------------------------

I could have sworn I had awoken once before, a memory from a dark and warm place. Perhaps from the time spent resting under my mother's heart, she who now so valiantly protected me from who I later came to learn was my father. He stood, wildly gesturing beside a wrinkled old man with a priestly robe covered in bloody stains. I could not understand their words, but there was a whole lot of shouting and spitting. Eventually, father closed his eyes for a moment, took the priestly-looking man by the neck, and then nearly dragged him through the room, out the door. There was more shouting after that from outside, but the soft humming of mother drowned out all noise and lulled me into slumber once more.

By now, the first years have become blurry; I can remember being fed, cleaned, and cared for, but many details have been lost with time. It wasn't long after greeting life that I had taken my first steps, fully determined to not remain unmoving, and soon mother's care evolved into worry. Two days after my first year had passed, I began climbing, her worry then instantaneously turned into fear. I was curious and hungry to learn.

Mother would often find me sitting on the kitchen table as she cooked, watching her tend to the fire, shape doughs for bread, cut tough-looking roots and greens for soup, or prepare salted meat from a stocky barrel. No matter how many times she took me from my watchtower and put me back on the floor, I always found my way back one way or another. My fascination with high places must have come from back then. Chairs, pallets, pots and pillows, they were all potential stepping stones for my ventures.

Perhaps it was strange that I had so many conscious thoughts as early as I did, a will to hasten my curve. But if I could explain it, one might say I felt and still feel older than I am. An odd thing perhaps, but none of my peers could ever share a memory of their first or second year in the world.

It took until that second year before I began picking up a word or two from mother. She would have probably wished for something other than "kettle" being the first one I proudly blurted out, but to my surprise, she had beamed with joy. And in tears, she had hauled me into a warm embrace. It was a good few years.

Now, I can't remember fully, but I believe it was halfway through my fourth year when father showed me something that would profoundly shake my understanding of the world, confined to our one room as it was.

"Father Norn has gathered support from the farmers, he's convincing them to put the blame for the failing crops on the little one," their argument had begun as father shut the door behind him, drenched from the rain hammering outside.

Mother had had none of it but accidentally tilted the kettle as she turned to face him, so that the water within put out the hearth in a billowing cloud of steam. Once their argument was over, she held me close as if to soothe both me and herself, but in the corner of my eye, I saw ‘it’. Whispering, father had held up a piece of tinder in his palm, and ever so slowly, smoke began to rise from its midst. He nonchalantly tossed the kindling onto the now wet firewood which against all logic began to steam and crackle as red flames licked the sides of each log. It was magical!

Poor mother would tend to burnt fingers at least once a day after that, as I, with fanatic stubbornness, attempted to recreate my father's feat. She scolded me often, but nonetheless, she always kept a pot of cold water near to hastily shove a blistered palm or finger into. Often, she scolded my father for having shown me such a thing at such an early age; oddly enough, he argued against it as if I was the one at fault all along. If anything, going forward, he stopped looking me in the eyes, and never again did he hold me.

"It's not normal," I could hear him mutter as he tore into his dinner at the head of the table every time I whispered into my palm. I never learnt what words he once spoke to conjure flame, but mine cared naught for kindling nor for child's hand. I simply asked, and with a flicker, I received. A thin finger of flame danced playfully like a lone candlelight within my cupped hands.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

One time, when I was closing in on my eighth year, father came back home, stumbled through the entrance like some raggedy troll. I, who had been sitting quietly practicing at mother's sickbed, greeted him as always with a courteous nod. But father cared naught. All he cared for was the lit ball swirling before me, pulsing and radiating like a miniature sun, and with hasty anger, he had emptied the pot of water atop both it and me so splashes and droplets fell on mother's face.

"You!" He had bellowed, "...you're what's making her sick!"

After that, he hit me for the first time. Once he had come to in the morning, he pretended like nothing happened, kissed mother's forehead before heading out to work. She drew her last breath later that day.

I can't say I enjoyed the next few years. All the more often, did he come home drunken and violent. Slurring curses and ill words at me before taking out his anger with his fists. If I hid outside or avoided him, he made sure to make it many times worse once he got the chance. After all, I couldn't hide forever.

I must have been twelve the first time I seriously contemplated killing him as he drunkenly snored in his chair, drool dripping from the table at which he leaned. It felt almost too easy. I could simply light one leg of his pantaloons on fire and let the fat and grease soaked into his unwashed clothes do the work, yet at the same time it felt impossible, as if a wall towered over me at the thought. Not today, I eventually decided while bitterly biting my already bloodied lip.

There weren't many children in the village my age, a few older and a handful of younger ones, but none that I could truly connect with. Not that I felt the need to play with children; exploring the surrounding fields and training my magical prowess was fulfilling enough, but one might say my wants mattered little as they tended to avoid me anyhow. In fact, most of the adults also ignored me passing, all but old man Norn, that was. Often, could I feel his gaze follow me while carrying water from the well or some other menial task around the houses. Like my father's, it was not a friendly gaze.

My fourteenth winter had just passed, and just like many a day, I stayed inside, tending to the home and continuing my mother's chores. Boring perhaps, but if I didn't uphold her work, there would, as so many times before, be consequences. I heard a commotion outside as it neared, and through the door, suddenly barged two farmers whose faces I just about recognized. Behind them, with wild eyes, hurried Father Norn.

Without hesitation, they launched themselves at me, pinned me down onto my mother's table, sending a bowl of flour tumbling to the floor. One farmer held my arms while the other grabbed my kicking legs—these were strong men, hard laboring men with calloused hands and tight grips, there was no getting loose.

Father Norn, the pious old coot, neared with a drawn knife, a thin blade intended not for harming but for cutting away at those with rotting wounds or limbs.

"I should have done this when you were born, but you see, your mother, that blasphemous woman wouldn't let me!" He tried explaining himself to me as I lay wheezing, grappled, furious and afraid.

I wasn't interested in hearing anything he said at the time, but I didn't have much choice, if anything, I only remember snarling at him for insulting mother. He cut my tunic from the collar all the way down and bared my chest before audibly flinching.

"It's gotten worse, lord give me strength to handle this cursed child!"

I think it was the first time I heard anything of it, there had been whispers, but none had ever called me cursed before, at least not to my face.

"Cursed?" I echoed in confusion as Father Norn mumbled prayers and performed rituals of questionable validity and to little or no effect. "What do you mean cursed!?" I repeated.

Father Norn cared only to answer once he felt done with his silly signs and all that mumbling. "That mark of yours, it's a curse!" his face was serious while the two farmers looked nervously at each other.

"It's just a birthmark..." I retorted, "...mother—"

"Your mother knew nothing, boy!" The old man snapped. "How many a child have you seen running around with red handprints above their hearts!?"

"But—"

"NONE is the answer! And this village has suffered enough because of you! This morning we lost two more cows along with the calves they carried, that's six since last winter!"

How he deduced that dead cattle had anything to do with my birthmark, I still ponder, but safe to say, I had no intention of getting carved at, just to satisfy his beliefs. Silently shaping the words, my lips unmoving while I conjured heat inside the bushy beard of the man gripping my wrists. Soon, thin stripes of smoke poured from within it. With a yelp, he released my arms and began striking his own face in an attempt to put out the ember.

With my arms freed, I took one look at the knife-wielding reverend before me and threw a fistful of fire straight at the surprised eyes of both him and the other farmer.

"Demon, ill kin, fiend!" Father Norn shouted as he rubbed his face, unscathed if only for a few curled strands in his singed eyebrows.

The farmer, however, was unlucky enough to not close his eyes in time, and he stumbled and fell wailing as tears streamed down his dirty face. Freed, I instantly leapt towards the flour pot on the floor, chucking what remained towards the two men floundering towards me. The second farmer remained on the floor still cursing and rubbing his eyes. They must have been confused when all I did was throw a cloud of ground wheat at them before bolting for the window behind me. More so when I chucked another handful of fire aimed, not at them, but the floury mist surrounding them. I still remember how that very confusion turned to surprise once the resulting explosion threw them to the floor. It bought me just enough time to unbar the shutters and climb out.

I never saw my father again. One might have guessed he sat at the tavern drinking himself stupid like so many times before, happily ignorant of what went down. But I'm sure he knew.

I hid out in an abandoned shed by the old logger's hut for two days until my hunger grew too large. Then, under the veil of night, I snuck into the village to gather my things. Luckily, father had not yet returned for sleep, and even though the door was locked shut, the window had been left unbarred. And so I snuck in and took what could fit inside my father's knapsack, before turning my back on the place where this life had begun.

I still couldn't shake the feeling that I carried more inside me than my few years would disclose; how had I known the flour would explode once set aflame? Thoughts that still to this day take my mind for a spin. But I relented, at the time, I knew little of the world, but I knew there were villages to the east, so that's where I headed.